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On the one-year anniversary of the train explosion that devastated Lac-Mégantic, behind the scraping of construction machinery against earth and the noise of trucks, there’s a familiar hum downtown. Returned on the anniversary weekend were the idling satellite trucks and broadcast antennas that last summer seemed ready to set down roots at the edge of the evacuated zone.

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It's just after the afternoon rush at the Lac-Mégantic McDonald's on a weekday in July, and the restaurant's tables are still halffilled with families out for a bite and older folks gathering for coffee and chit-chat.

That thing you smell is hope. After years blighted by corruption scandals, topped off by 18 months of divisive policies and five weeks of bruising rhetoric, turns out that what Quebecers crave most is social peace and a chance to live and worry about normal things.

From an official ballot box spotted at a McDonald’s in Montreal to a local businessman offering a day off to all his employees if the Parti Québécois doesn’t win — irregularities of all sorts were popping up Monday well before the last vote was even counted.

With advanced voting heavier than in the last Quebec election, no one could be happier than Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer. “That’s good news for us. The greater the numbers, the better for us,” Johanne Patry, spokesperson for the Directeur général des élections (DGE), said Monday.

It's always something: Folks who can't make up their minds when ordering at McDonald's. The colonic backlash of ethnic food. The joys of skiing on tequila. The joys of potential castration while white-water rafting.

The Gazette’s Lesley Chesterman recently enumerated 20 pet peeves she has about the restaurant experience. Inspired by her column, two servers who work in Montreal-area restaurants have come up with their own list of grievances about restaurant customers and their behaviour.

Only a fraction of the books that cross my desk for review are covered in this column, so it’s inevitable that some worthy titles get overlooked. The book I’d like to bring to your attention today — a nonfiction account of Temple Grandin, arguably the most famous autistic adult in the world — is one such title.

One month after a runaway train derailed and exploded, the centre of the 6,000-person town is still in ruins. Cleanup will take months - or years. Five people are still missing and another 42 are dead.

Who says Montrealers are bad drivers? Maybe someone new to the city, or unfamiliar with the Montreal driving culture of the 1980s, which I remember as being a shade more civilized than the one in the Mad Max movies.

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